The Broken Star
by sketchingseaweed
Summary: In a world oppressed by the Galra, an organization bent on the eradication of all mutants, Lance has learned a lot. How to survive. How to be silent. How to break into a heavily guarded base. How to spear someone's head with asparagus. But he's forgotten things too. Things Keith Kogane are reminding him of.


At the present moment, Lance needed several things. A half-decent rifle, for instance. A disguise that didn't consist of the armor of an unconscious guard who smelled like sweaty gym socks. Some better partners.

He did _not_ need Pidge's sarcasm.

"Lance, I can hear you from here. Walk more quietly, for fuck's sake."

"Well, I apologize, Pidge 'sitting safely back at base while Lance risks his ass for the upteenth time this week' Gunderson-"

"Guys, can you please not," Hunk moaned over the intercom. "I'm going to puke."

Lance grumbled under his breath, but shut his mouth, not in the mood to give his weak-stomached partner more incentive to vomit all over the control board he would be manning with Pidge.

Oh, and while those two sat back at the nice, air-conditioned base while watching the chaos over the montier, what would Lance be doing? Oh, right, just _breaking into a Galra supply hub. Alone._

You know. Nothing much.

He could act irked, but he knew as well as his two partners did that he would rather be on the battlefield than playing the guy in the chair. Sitting still while other people risked their lives didn't sit well with him.

Didn't mean he couldn't rub it across Pidge and Hunk's faces.

He tightened his grip on his gun as he rounded a corner, but he knew no one would be there. Pidge or Hunk would have said something if there was.

In fact, the sentry stationing at this base was particularly odd. Sentries were stationed, unmoving, before rooms whose contents always remained Galra-free. Hunk and Pidge had managed to build a sensor for the high traces of whatever-it-was that was inside the bracelets Galra used as sensors. But whatever was in those rooms was decidedly Galra-free.

Which meant it could be just about anything.

Another left, and Lance knew he was approaching the most heavily guarded area. The area which held the weird standing-still guards. And the intel they needed.

The mission was simple. Lance would get in there, insert a little virus-carrying flash drive into the supercomputer hub (or whatever it was), get out, and _boom_. Pidge once again breaks every law ever and can now access the system.

Easy, really. It wouldn't have been the first time they'd done it. Ever since they'd formed their little rebellion, Lance'd been breaking and entering into countless Galra bases, because if there was anything living with siblings taught you, it was how to move silently.

"Alright, Lance. Please catch the plate this time."

"That was _one time!_ " Lance intinsticitly tunred to the ventaltion shaft he had paused next to just as the plate came loose and fell forwards, right into his waiting arms, pushed by a small, floating robot. "Wassup, Rover?"

"One time which ended in sixteen Galra guards de-limbed, a food fight, the base's Commander with her head speared on a flash-frozen piece of asparagus, and your near death."

"I thought we agreed to forget about the Asparagus Incident?" Lance pulled himself up into the vent silently, waving goodbye to Rover as the robot screwed the vent plate back on behind him.

"Believe me, I tried to erase that from my memory," Hunk's voice cut in. "Can we please go one mission without mentioning the Asparagus Incident? The fact that Lance can spear _anyone_ 's head on a piece of asparagus is not something I need to think about when I'm trusting my life in that hands of this guy."

"My vegetable capabilities should be comforting, actually," Lance replied, crawling silently through the cramped vent. He came to an opening in the metal shaft and peered into the room below. "Doesn't seem like it'll be much help here, though. I found the mess hall. This place is definitely not transporting food, if their menu options are anything to go by."

"I figured as such," Pidge replied. "We've been to food supply bases. Their security layouts are completely different."

Lance nodded, moving on. "Alright. I'm in position," He muttered as he stopped in front of another vent opening. "Now, let's see…" His voice trailed off as he peered into the room.

"Lance? Come in!"

"Lance, what's wrong? What's going on?"

Pidge and Hunk's voices seemed far off as Lance stared down into the room below, because _Oh, god, they had no idea what they had gotten themselves into._

"Lance! Oh my god, please respond-"

"I know what they're transporting." His voice was eerily calm, way calmer than he felt.

There was radio silence for a minute, and Lance knew that Pidge and Hunk knew that something was very wrong.

"...What is it?"

Lance swallowed, hard. He wanted to tear his eyes away so badly, yet he couldn't, not when he so vividly remembered-

 _Cold, cold, cold, yet he was so hot, because the room was freezing but there was way too many people in this room for its size. He was trapped between two people he didn't know, head hung low and eyes dull as he trudged along._

"People," He said, his voice hollow and broken. "This is a prison. Or- or some kind of prison hub, I don't know."

 _A scream, a bright flash, and then pain was shooting up his back as he dropped to the ground, body so thing that each bone could be seen through the pale, papery-thin skin._

"Lance- oh, god. We've got to get him out of there-"

An involuntary whimper left Lance's mouth as he watched a small girl cry silently in her cell, back pressed as far back to the wall as it could go.

"Yeah, okay," He whispered. "I'm coming back."

 **Twenty-Three Years Previously:**

Lance was very fortunate, he knew that. He always had been. There were a million things that could have gone wrong in his life that didn't. The first years of his life had been ones of pure bliss, of playing in the sand with his mother and dancing around the living room with his siblings.

He had been born around the end of the Golden Age of superheros. It was about 50 years since superpowers had begun springing up amongst the human race. Well, Lance supposed humans had been mutanting in such a way for much longer, in smaller ways, like increased hearing or psychic connections to nature or foresight, he didn't know. But it was around 50 years since superpowers had _really_ appeared, noticeably, at least.

The first generation of mutants were sparse, and their powers were not very prevalent- some could make plants grow faster or levitate. However, about three generations later, Lance was in the generation of which mutants had powers ripped straight out of comic books.

And, of course, with this came the profession of a superhero.

There was a lot of legal garbage that came with being an officially registered superhero, working alongside law enforcement, so there were a fair amount of vigilantes as well, mainly idolized by teenagers, but it was generally more socially acceptable to legally register as a superhero.

Schools for mutants appeared, mutant communities popped up over the country, and mutants were praised as saviors sent from God. Everyone wanted to be a mutant. Superheros lived in famed luxury, atop thrones of gold.

That was the Golden Age of superheros.

It was estimated that about 40% of the population had the mutation gene, though it only activated in about 30% of those cases. It was cruel, in a way, not knowing if you were a mutant or not, because unless your gene activated in a grand fashion there was really no way of knowing.

It was generally accepted that the best way to get your gene to activate was to be in a life-threatening situation, a situation in which only your gene could get you out. Suicide and self-harm rates soared upwards as people threw themselves headfirst into danger. And it was this, Lance supposed, which really gave traction to the Galra.

It'd been a relatively small organization at first, operating out of a pretty well-known city called Daibazaal. They'd advertized themselves as being an organization against mutants due to the suicide increase and the fact that crimes rates were not significantly decreasing while property damage ones were. Mutants of course were always controversial, due to their unknown origins and the misfortune they seemed to bring, so the Galra gained members and popularity pretty quickly. They'd never made any big statements aside from organizing peaceful protests.

Then, in a battle against his arch nemesis, Alfor, the "King of Supers," as he was commonly called, who hailed from Altea, one of the largest cities in the country, let things get a little too out of hand. Lance could remember clutching his mother's hand as the two incredibly powerful mutants, hero and villain, fought it out over live television. He couldn't pretend it hadn't been exhilarating, and his older brother and sister were cheering on Alfor as he flew through the air, graceful even when facing certain death. It had been exciting, crazy, ripped straight from the colorful pages of a comic book.

But in the end, Daibazaal was reduced to nothing more than rubble.

The Galra got more violent after that. No longer were their protests peaceful. Hundreds had died in that battle. It had proved to the public what the Galra had been saying all along: _Mutants were bad._ People sympathized with the Galra. The mutants had destroyed their home. Their numbers swelled.

Law enforcement was on their side, too. Suddenly, previously celerated superheros were vigilantes, if not outright villains. Kids who had previously dreamed of soaring through the sky as superheros were advised against idolizing them, because they were bad, evil, bringing destruction and death. Within years, it became an outright riot. And hence, the Galra had completely swayed society.

It didn't take long after that for a Galra official to be voted into office as President, giving the Galra unprecedented political power. Galra filled the Senate, the House, overwhelming those few who were still pro-mutant. And hence, the Galra swayed politics.

After that, the Galra began making drastic movements to control everyday life. They took over branding, marketing, slowing conquering the country in small ways in such that people didn't even object. Eventually, people hardly had free will anymore. Everything had to be Galra-approved. It was impossible to ship anything from out-of-country anymore, seeing as the Galra controlled imports. And hence, the Galra swayed economics.

As it became clear that the Galra were completely dominating the country, being a mutants became a worse and worse offense. The Galra had access to all the previous records of superheros, and old heros lost their jobs, some even kicked out of their own homes. Heros known to have caused great property damage in the past were sometimes arrested, where the law had previously protected them.

Resistance groups were formed, of course, but none lasted long. The greatest of these was called Voltron, a coalition of previous heros, including Alfor, who worked together as a team to take down the Galra, but they only lasted a few years before the Galra raided their base and took them all prisoner. Their punishment was brutal, and no other major resistance groups formed after that.

Lance's family, however, had always been on the mutant's side. Both his parents and his oldest brother and sister worked in the hero industry, all of them having activated their gene when getting caught in a car crash or being born with an active gene, which was less common but did happen. They suffered for their mutation. His mother, who hadn't been a very big or destructive hero, managed to find work at a little cafe. His father, brother, and sister, however, had all been pretty well known. They never found another job.

Life was hard for the McClains. Lance worked part time at a coffee shop whenever he could. He'd never gone to a school for mutants, despite coming from a family known to carry the mutation gene. His parents had wanted him to have a normal education, or something.

It still hurt to see the mutant schools shut down, knowing that the kids who had gone there would face suffering even more extreme than his own. He was thankful that his gene hadn't activated. He even hoped that he didn't have the gene. At the very least, his troubles were minimized because he wasn't a mutant.

He had to drop out of school eventually. It was too much of an expense, despite all the the McClain sibling working full time. The coffeeshop he worked at was drap, unitresting, but at least it was something.

They were desperate, but what was there to do? They were stuck between a rock and a hard place.

It was almost a relief when he finally moved out, to live with his friend Hunk. He was sad to leave his family behind, but it was one less mouth to feed, he supposed.

Hunk had always been a source of comfort, as life spiraled from great to awful. He wasn't a mutant, as far as either of them could tell. They'd met back in high school, when the Galra had been getting really big and Lance had come to school looking increasingly frazzled and stressed. Hunk had been the only thing standing between him and a mental breakdown.

He only lived with Hunk for a year, but it was by far better than his years before. He still tried to send as much extra money (when there was any) to his family as possible, but he was finally able to relax, if even a little. Hunk worked at a pretty well-known restaurant down the street, so they were never as desperate as they had been. He even talked about helping Lance find a job at the restaurant.

And most of all, Hunk always had hope, hope that seemed inexplicable but was helpful nonetheless. "I'm telling you, buddy," he would say whenever Lance felt particularly down, "Things'll get better. You'll see. And, when I'm right, you owe me a batch of your Abuela's cookies. Those things are legendary."

And Lance would laugh, and agree, because yeah, his Abuela made some _killer_ cookies. And then Hunk would make him promise to go get the recipe from her, once things sorted themselves out, and Lance would leave for work feeling just a bit hopeful.

Things were rough, but it seemed like they might get better.

Then, when he turned 20, everything went wrong.

 **3 Years Previously:**

It was two weeks after his twentieth birthday when being a mutant became a criminal offense.

The Galra wanted to cleanse humanity, they said, to return it to the state it had been a century previously. And the public agreed.

The previous mutant schools became "housing" places for mutants, as they were called, but they were prisons.

Lance's entire family was rounded up, including him. He remembered the horrible car ride, the dragging in the pit of his stomach as his home became further and further out of sight. He remembered being thrown into that room, the room that was too cold and too hot and too crowded.

They were seperated by age. He was with his sisters Rachel and Veronica.

He never learned what happened to the rest of his family.

He was in that prison for two years. Two years of chatter that eventually sizzled down to hopeless silence, which was far worse. Two years of muscle built up by years of swimming reduced to paper-thin skin and bone. Two years of pain, torment, of utter hopelessness that came from knowing that no one out there was on their side, that no one out there was going to help them, of knowing that the cavalry wasn't coming.

A year of being too, too crowded. Another year of the rooms being too empty. They spent the whole day working until slowly, one by one, mutants dropped and didn't wake up again.

Everyday was exhausting. It was exhausting to get up, to lay back down again, to _live._ All the days were the same. All the days were miserable. It was hard to believe that life could get any worse.

And then they started the execution. And, somehow, life did get worse, because now you had to live with the dread that curled in your stomach like a lead weight as you waited for your day to come, and with the dragging guilt of knowing that someone else had died so that you could live another day. Whole families would be executed at once, shot for the criminal offense of being alive. The mutant population slowly trickled out until there was hardly any left, but Lance kept going. He learned not to look back, to only look down at the ground and stomach his exhaustion in order to live another day, if only for his family.

He tried to have hope. It didn't do anything.

The day they executed his family came without warning.

 **14 Months Previously:**

It was smooth, virtually silent. The guards came in one day (they always did, and they always took another person with them), and Lance didn't look up, not until his arms were wrenched behind his back and he was being marched out of the room.

He didn't look back. He didn't want to. He'd taught himself to never look back, in those years spent in prison, the years that dragged long and harsh. He knew, from her ragged breathing, that Veronica was being dragged along with him, but he didn't look back.

He didn't think about Rachel, who had collapsed four months ago, carried off with the other bodies and he didn't look back. He _couldn't_ look back. She hadn't been strong enough. It didn't matter. He didn't look back.

For the first time in months, he saw his family, or what was left of it, at least, bound high up on that horrible bloodstained platform. His mama, his papa, his oldest sister and brother. His nieces and nephews were nowhere in sight, but this didn't surprise him. He'd already mourned. He wasn't looking back.

There was a crowd, quite a large one. He supposed there was a lot of publicity in his family's execution- they were fairly well known, and he supposed they had to be one of the only remaining of the old hero families. The crowd was bloodthirsty.

He didn't listen to the well-dressed Galra official who read off a list of his families crimes. He didn't listen to the crowd.

But he listened to the gunshots.

It was his papa first. And memories came flooding back, crashing into Lance's memories faster than he could contain them. Of bright smiles, encouraging words, of soaring through the air on shoulders, of toes submerged in the sand of a beach, of eyes which turned worn and tired, of desperate tears.

His mother next, memories of comfort, of warm embraces, of kind eyes, of weariness and hopelessness, of the embraces turning less warm and more desperate.

And, one by one, memories flooded back into his mind, and he realized that tears were streaming down his face as he remembered how things were, how they had changed, as third, a fourth, a fifth bang, until Lance stood alone on the platform, the corpses of his family beside him.

And, for the first time in over a year, Lance looked back.

He remembered opening his mouth in a kind of twisted scream, as his scream was echoed by the crowd, and _water, water, cold, it hurts, it hurts,_ and suddenly he was running, running, far away from where his family lay, cold, cold, and still.

He didn't look back again.

 **Twelve Months Previously:**

It was a miracle, really, that he had found Hunk and Pidge. The two months after the execution were the hardest in his life. He'd been in bad shape, sleeping in an alleyway on a pile of thrown-out clothes and a few blankets, stealing food from trash bins and living on the brink of death.

He'd seen the posters that flashed across screens, the ones that called for his arrest, with his name and picture.

 _Lance McClain. 22 years old. Wanted on basis of mass murder and illegal mutation. Mutation: Hydrokinesis._

He didn't remember killing those Galra guards, or the people in that crowd. He was in a kind of daze during those months, not really living as much as just being alive.

He didn't use his mutation to help him. He didn't know _how_. As far as he knew, no one had ever had control over water. The previous mutations had merely been advancements to the human body, like fight and super strength. No one had even been able to control something outside of themselves.

He didn't want to use his mutation, either. Apparently, last time, he had killed over fifty people. He still woke up screaming, his memory flooded with the memory of the execution.

He probably would have stayed like that forever, drifting, if Hunk and Pidge hadn't found him. It'd been an accident, really. As far as he could tell, Hunk and Pidge had been running from Galra guards when they'd taken refuge in his alleyway. It'd nearly given all of them a heart attack, when he'd leapt at them like a cat, hissing madly without realizing who they were.

" _Lance?"_ Hunk's voice seemed equal measures confused and exhilarated.

"Hunk?" He'd been breathless. It had been two years since he'd last seen his best friend.

Hunk was bigger then, more muscular. He was messy, hair tangled with sticks and face smeared with dirt and wearing some sort of ridiculous camo outfit he supposed was supposed to be a disguise, but he was still _Hunk_ , still a grounding source of comfort.

"Wait, Lance? McClain?" There was another person with Hunk. They was very small, dressed in the same camo outfit, clearly having been working with Hunk. "You mean, the guy who killed, like, seventy people?"

Lance winced. Yep. That was him, the mass murderer. "That… was an accident."

"An accident." Their tone was skeptic.

"Pidge, back off for two seconds, okay? I know Lance. Or I did. It's been a while, buddy," said Hunk, peering at his face. Lance imagined he couldn't be looking great, seeing as it had been over two years since he had last eaten a real meal.

"Yeah. It has," was the only reply he could think of.

"Pidge, this is my friend Lance. Lance, this is my friend Pidge." He nodded at the small person, who had taken out a little collection of wires and begun threading them together absentmindedly.

Hunk turned back to Lance. "We've got a little base set up in our old apartment, if you wanna come?"

And Lance agreed, because what did he have to lose? And that was the scary thought, the knowledge that he had _nothing_ left to lose but his own life.

Hunk and Pidge's hideout wasn't fancy, but it was better than anything Lance had seen in two years. It was still the apartment, sort of, but the building itself was a wreck.

"They burnt it down, a little over a year ago," Hunk explained, pushing a large table covered in bits of metal in front of the door. "But this side of the building is still relatively intact. There's a few other people that live here, mostly people like us, just trying to survive, but we don't talk, really."

The apartment itself was about the same, layout wise, but the bedroom was now filled with machines, computers and monitors and screens that blinked in the dim light. "We traded the mattress for this baby a while back," Pidge said, patting a large monitor screen which was spouting wires like some strange, many-legged spider. "Best trade I ever made."

It seemed that they had traded a lot of furniture, actually. "We had to trade the couch a few months ago, for this keyboard. It was sad, but worth it," Hunk lamented.

Living with Hunk and Pidge was the best thing that had happened to him in years. He wasn't really sure how to interact with people anymore, and he worried that would bother them, but it didn't. Pidge didn't particularly want to talk much anyway, preferring to work on their machines, which was nice. Hunk was easy to talk to. He seemed to instinctively know which topics to avoid. They never talked about Lance's years in prison, nor any of their families, aside from Pidge, who briefly explained that they wanted to find their brother and father, who had been taken prisoner by the Galra. They explained that they had been hacking into Galra databases for about a year, since they had come to live together. It was nice, having people to talk to who didn't look at him with sad, hollow eyes or like he was vermin.

It took quite a while for him to rebuild himself. The years spent in prison had taken a toll on his body and mind, leaving scars that could probably never be undone. It took him some time to warm up to Pidge, but he liked them, eventually.

Eventually, the three of them started breaking into Galra bases. Hunk and Pidge had been sort of doing it for a while, but neither of them were really made for stealth. Lance, however, was. And the three of them managed to form their own sort of rebellion.

It didn't make seeing the prisoners any easier.


End file.
